


The End of the World As We Know It

by cloveremoji



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Android, M/M, One Shot, harry/zayn is side, just some pals living in a post apocalypse world!, nick/greg is the smallest of small things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 09:11:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9116797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloveremoji/pseuds/cloveremoji
Summary: Aliens tore Earth apart, and now they're all dealing with the aftermath. Things would be all well and good, but everyone's pairing off, and Liam has a weird scar, and the world may not be ending anymore, but Louis still feels just as lost.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic a long time ago, and today I decided, what the hell, why not see if someone can actually appreciate it. Written with 2014 1D in mind.  
> Not beta'd or bitpicked, all mistakes are mine, and there probably are a good amount of mistakes.

The skies are clear tonight.

Louis still doesn’t trust them.

It’s been ages since the skies were the enemy, ages since the soldiers woke up and ravaged the Earth, taking what they needed and leaving what they didn’t behind to scavenge for themselves in the shadow of a world that no longer existed, but he still can’t bring himself to trust them, not fully. Most people can’t, nowadays.

Tomato plants wave in a gentle wind, and that’s a much more friendly sight. It means that if nothing else, tomorrow they can have tomato salad, a recipe that Harry swore existed in the real world, a mix of onions, vinegar, olive oil, and lots of tomatoes. Louis doesn’t properly believe him. It’s fairly good, but he can’t imagine someone willingly eating that when they had super markets at their disposal.

Anyway, it’s never come to that before, eating just a small salad and nothing else. They have enough canned goods stocked up, though they normally save those for winter when crops get scarce. They make it okay, though. They have their make-shift farm and their small chicken coop and they manage alright.

Louis remembers when they had tried to convince themselves that they could raise and kill cows, too. They had started with just the one, and they could never bring themselves to kill it. Besides, even if they had, there would have been such and excessive amount of meat with no way of storing it. Now, the cow roams the area and every now and then, for a treat, they milk it. They don’t do it often, because Zayn says it has germs and isn’t safe like the ones in the store, and he doesn’t like to risk it.

Something howls in the distance. Wolf or something, probably. Maybe a coyote. He can’t remember if England has coyotes. That seems like such an important thing to remember now, such an obvious thing, but he has no clue. Either way, it means he needs to go inside.

Louis grabs his gun and stands up, the old porch creaking beneath him. The door opens behind him.

“You don’t need to wait up for me, Liam,” he says as he walks inside. Liam frowns.

“I don’t like you sitting out there all alone. Something could happen to you.”

As he turns his back to Liam and walks up the stairs, Louis doesn’t point out that something has happened to him, that his world has been ripped away along with his family and everything he cares about.

“Goodnight, Louis. Love you.”

Well, not everything.

He has his boys now. They aren’t family, but they’re there for him, and they love him and they say it, too.

Everyone says it a lot now. Everyone knows what it’s like to regret not saying.

“Love you, too, Liam. Get some sleep.”

Liam grunts in response and walks into the living room, probably to his couch. They don’t have enough rooms for everyone. Nick and Greg already share, Niall and Louis both have singles, and Zayn and Harry share what was probably the master bed. Louis thinks they probably prefer it that way.

He’s offered his bed to Liam often enough, but he always refuses, despite the fact that the couch is rock hard and they both know it, too. Whatever. He won’t take from Liam the little chivalry he can offer.

He pads up to his room and flops onto his bed. He only needs a sheet tonight to keep him at the right temperature, and he falls asleep soon enough.

-

Louis wakes up early. He can hear Zayn and Harry mumbling to each other a room over, and to his other side Nick and Greg are arguing over whether it’s fair for Nick to bathe as often as he wants if he gets the water from the well himself. Louis thinks it’s probably fine, seeing as Nick’s doing all the work, but Greg’s saying that Nick’s trying to make himself better than everyone else by smelling good.

His bones crack as he starts to move around and head downstairs. The sound of something sizzling meets him, and he smiles when he sees Liam frying an egg on the stove. Proper Boy Scout that he is, Liam is the only one comfortable with the various camp-style stoves they have. Now, though, he’s just using a pan with a small fire under it. Funny how modern appliances can so quickly turn into useless pieces of junk.

“Freshly picked?”

“You know Zayn would never have it any other way,” Liam says, smiling at him with his bright smile. “What are your chores today?”

Louis stretches, his shirt riding up and exposing a bit of his stomach. He pretends not to notice Liam’s eyes glancing down at it. Everyone eyes each other a bit now that there’s no porn. It makes even the most innocent slice of skin seem tantalizing. Louis likes to think people eye him more than others, but he’s sure the others would disagree.

“Wash the clothes, pick the fruit, clean the chicken coop. You?”

“Wash clothes, pick the vegetables, clean the chicken coop.” Liam grins. “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

“Hey, don’t let Zayn hear you say that.” He’s referring to the ‘ain’t.’ Zayn insists that they all stay civil, that they use real words and they behave with manners, and people don’t argue because anything that can help them feel like normal is worth it, and if speaking properly makes Zayn feel normal, than they’ll do that.

“Too late. Liam, I hate you,” Zayn announces as he walks in, Harry behind him.

“It’s haircut day,” Harry sings, doing an odd ballet spin through the kitchen doorway and sliding into his chair. “Greg promised.”

Greg’s haircut skills were no better than the rest of them, but he was the only one brave enough to take responsibility for the state of everyone’s hair, and he’d probably learned a few things since he started doing it.

Liam patted his hair and frowned, probably thinking of the buzz cut they found him with. Such haircuts were impossible without clippers, and now his hair was a solid inch long. Long enough to cut, anyhow.

“Are you actually going to let him cut it?”

Harry grins and shrugs. “I mean, trim the split ends, but not much else.” _Split ends._ As if hair care still was a priority. “Long hair, don’t care!”

“Thinking I might let him just give me a fringe and chop off the rest of it,” Louis says thoughtfully. “I’ll look like me when I was eighteen. I could use some youthfulness. Think I’m getting wrinkles.”

“I don’t see them, Lou,” Liam reassures.

Zayn looks thoughtful. “I doubt wrinkle cream is a sought-after commodity. Nick and I are going to the town to the north to look around some. I might be able to find some, if you want.”

“Please. What else are you looking for?”

“Niall asked for hair bleach, Nick wants some more socks, Liam could use new pants, I need a blanket--,”

“So do I!” Harry chimes in, and Zayn flushes.

“Harry, that’s why I said that,” he mumbles, and Liam and Louis exchange a look. It’s common enough knowledge that the two have something going on, but if they want to be exclusive about it, it’s their business. “Greg asked for more pens. Harry wants chocolate. Then, of course, any food, soap, or needs we can find is great.”

Niall trails in then, looking lost. “I just had the weirdest fucking dream. It was all of us, but we were pop stars, mate. Nick and Greg did some radio shit, but it wasn’t very important.”

“Oi!” Apparently Nick and Greg were right behind Niall, because they walk in, looking thoroughly offended.

“As if, Niall,” Nick scoffs. “Greg and I would be the wildly successful pop stars and you lot would just have sex to our CDs after working a nine to five office job. Twats.”

Louis is pretty positive that that’s not at all right, but whatever.

“Hey, when do you and Nick leave?” Liam asks Zayn, starting to pass out plates of fried eggs to the housemates.

“Right after breakfast, thanks, mate,” Zayn responds, taking his plate.

When Liam hands him his, he thanks him quietly, as do the rest, before digging in while Liam goes to wash the pan, probably having eaten earlier.

The eggs are good, but he misses eggs with cheese. Sometimes, for dinner, they have omelets with vegetables in it, which is good, but it isn’t the same without cheese.

Sometimes Louis wishes he had been a dairy farmer instead of an actor. Maybe then he’d be able to eat cheese with his eggs.

It’s quiet as they eat. Zayn finishes first and stands up, patting Nick on the back.

“Ready to head out?”

“Yeah, sure,” Nick says, standing up and putting his dish on top of Zayn’s, starting a pile.

“Hey, I don’t know when the next time it’s going to be safe for you guys to do this, okay? So grab some winter items if you can. Just to be safe,” Niall puts in.

Zayn nods. “We’ll get what we can. We’re taking the car.”

Harry makes a worried face. “I thought we were saving it for emergencies.”

Niall shrugs. “I don’t think it makes much difference, to be honest. We’re going to run out of gas sometime. I mean, we can steal some out of other cars we find when it gets really low, and for now we only use for like ten miles at a time. Might as well just load up on stuff, and it’s easiest to do that with the car.”

“I’d rather be safe now than wait for some unseen circumstance that may never come,” Louis put in.

“Fine. Take the car,” Harry snaps.

He’s probably not really annoyed, Louis reasons. It’s more likely that he’s scared because going to get supplies is always risky and he’s scared for Zayn, and Nick, of course, but it’s different to be scared for your boyfriend than your best friend.

Zayn and Nick head out, and the house murmurs a couple goodbyes and be safes.

Liam wanders back in and hands Greg some scissors.

“Let’s get this over with.”

Greg laughs and they all migrate outside, one by one letting Greg cut their hair, and afterwards Louis takes the scissors and trims Greg’s hair quickly.

“Thanks, mate.”

“No problem,” Louis says, shrugging.

“Lunch is fend for yourself, alright? You know the rules. You know the rations, all that,” Liam says, waving a hand. “Dinner is beans and rice. Get to work, everyone.”

Niall and Greg nod and go off to the back of the house where they have to dig the outhouse holes and fill the holes already used. It’s an unpleasant job, but it’s necessary.

Harry wanders off to the chicken coop, his true home, probably to sing to the chickens because he swears it makes them produce more eggs.

Liam and Louis grab the dirty clothes baskets and head down to the well.

-

Together, the scrub the clothes clean. Liam hums a bit. He works fast, efficient. Louis tries not to ogle his arms.

“Do you think it’s odd how Harry and Zayn are a couple?” Liam asks out of nowhere after a while.

“Not really,” Louis responds, shrugging. “They fit.”

“No, I don’t mean like that, I just mean-- well. It’s the end of the world. Is romance really a priority anymore?”

“It’s not the end of the world anymore. We survived that.” Louis shrugs. “I think… I think romance isn’t a priority, but love is. Right? We need love now more than ever, and if they have that between each other, than why not?”

“Do you think it is love?”

“Jesus, Liam, I don’t know. I hope so. A breakup would be awkward as fuck, wouldn’t you say?”

Liam nods amiably. “Do you need love, Louis?”

It’s such an innocent question, but Louis shudders a bit at it. Does he need love? Only Liam could think nothing of asking someone that.

“I think everyone needs love.”

“But, like, romantic love.”

Louis sighs. “I have you all. I have your platonic love and that tides me over, okay? That makes me feel good. I wouldn’t say that I don’t sometimes think about how in the real world, how if the world hadn’t changed, I would be looking to marry right now. I would be looking to have a kid right now. Well, maybe not yet, because 25 seems a bit early for that, but. Things would be different. I would be settling down. But this is where I am now, and to be honest, I don’t ponder all the time about romance. I think I feel happy now. I’m not lonely. I can stand it.”

Liam doesn’t say anything and goes back to washing the pair of boxers he’s currently working on.

Louis blushes a bit when he notices they’re his.

-

Zayn and Nick get back during dinner, covered in sweat and grime and carrying back the fruits of the day.

Niall stands to the side and takes inventory as they put away the supplies.

“It was a good day for cans. Where did you go?”

“We found a rich neighborhood,” Nick says, placing six cans of pineapple into the cabinet. “Some untouched houses because it was surrounded by huge walls. The gate was hard to move open. We closed it after us, hopefully next time we go back there still might be a couple things left.”

Zayn hands Louis a bottle of wrinkle cream and smiles. “Here you go, old man.”

Louis sticks his tongue out and pockets it before going to help unload.

The end inventory of the day is 22 cans of various soups, 15 canned fruits, 12 canned vegetables, 11 canned beans, 5 canned juices, 3 cans of Spam, 2 jars of peanut butter, a package of pens, 6 empty notebooks, 5 books, 2 blankets, 4 pairs of underwear, 2 pairs of pants, 6 shirts, 2 pairs of socks, a pair of shoes, a bag of chocolate chips, 4 bottles of body wash, and a bottle of wrinkle cream.

Everyone feels pretty great, even Niall, who didn’t get his hair bleach.

It’s the best haul they’ve had in ages.

The cabinets feel full. Louis knows that, reasonably, this can’t get them through the entire winter, and that when considering healthy diets and protein levels, they’ll still be terribly underfed. He stills feels like light.

Zayn and Harry disappeared to their room almost as soon as inventory was done. Zayn stated that they were going to put the blankets and clothes up, but Louis knew that they were going to have a cuddle. Harry had been moping all day. It was always hard when people left to go miles away.

Nick, Greg, Niall, Liam, and Louis sit in the living room for a game of charades. Liam and Louis choose each other for their team, despite the protests of the others.

“You two have a weird connection,” Niall grumbles.

“Yeah,” Louis says, grinning. He sits on the floor, leaning against the couch and Liam’s legs. He isn’t wearing socks. Neither is Liam, so he decides to bump their toes together. “Cold feet club,” he declares solemnly. Liam just gives him a fond smile.

“Nick and I have an equally weird connection! We can win!” Greg pumps his fist in the air. His team doesn’t join in.

No connection is as weird as Louis and Liam’s.

They win, obviously. Liam does a great impression of a whale and Louis does a brilliant Sherlock Holmes. Meanwhile, Niall blunders about doing a Harry Potter and Nick didn’t even know who Bella Swan was. Idiots.

Before going to bed, they all hug and exchange goodnights.

Louis thinks Liam is hugging him extra hard that night, so he does it right back. His hand traces down Liam’s spine and—

He feels a weird… indentation? hole? right below the base of his neck.

Liam jolts away.

“Night, Louis. Love you.”

“Night,” Louis says, eyebrows furrowed. “Love you too.”

His hand feels like it’s vibrating.

As he goes to bed that night, he writes it off as a battle scar. No one likes to talk about those. It was reasonable that Liam would shy away from having to explain it.

Instead, he thinks about how in twenty years, no one will know what a whale is. Maybe Sherlock Holmes or Harry Potter, if the remaining copies are still read. But a whale? No one is going to be going deep sea diving. No one in a landlocked area will know that they exist.

They might not even know about the ocean.

He supposes there are worse things to not know about. It’s still a weird thought.

-

“I think we should have sex,” Nick proposes to Louis. They’re sorting the cans into order by expiration date in the mid-afternoon, their stomachs as full as they’ve been in a while.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t play coy.” Nick shrugs. “It’s just an idea. I mean, why should Zayn and Harry be the only ones enjoying themselves? It doesn’t have to mean anything. Just… Relieving some frustration.”

Louis hums for him to keep going.

“Zayn got, like, all this lube and stuff when we were out yesterday. He said if I let him sneak it in he would let me use some. Not that he can really claim it as his exclusive stash, but. Anyhow, I have access. You are gay, right?”

“Bi,” Louis says, dragging out the ‘I’.

“That’s fine. Just think about it, yeah? It gets kinda lonely around here sometimes. It wouldn’t be the worst thing.”

“Yeah. I’ll think about it.” He doesn’t know if he will or not, though. Instead he just stacks some more cans.

He thinks his hand is still vibrating.

-

At dinner, Harry asks if they should pray. They all look at him oddly.

“Pray?” Niall repeats incredulously.

“Yeah.” Harry frowns. “I-- I never did it before hand and I… I feel like we should. I just…”

“It’d be nice to have a God now,” Liam says quietly, nodding.

“Yeah.” Harry sighs.

“I don’t think you can just decide a God would be nice, though,” Greg says thoughtfully. “I mean, if you really have found him, we’ll pray if you want to. You know we will. But I don’t think we should just do it because the world would be easier if there is one.”

“I just wish it felt a little less alone out here.”

“You’re not alone, Haz. You have us. We’re not going anywhere.” Zayn puts his arm around Harry, and kisses his cheek lightly.

“Zayn!” Harry blushes and sits up straight. “I thought we decided--”

“We all knew, mate,” Nick interrupts.

“Congrats, and all that,” Greg says.

Niall whoops and pats Harry on the back, who still looks fairly in shock. Louis laughs a bit.

“Weirdest fucking conversation,” Louis grunts. “Glad I found you all.”

-

Louis had been alone at a supermarket for a couple days, hiding in a closet, when Zayn and Harry found him. Back then, the androids were still among them, still wreaking havoc. He had thought Harry and Zayn would kill him. People did that then. People still do that-- kill those who get between them and supplies.

Instead, Harry had asked him to join their group and he had, obviously.

They had lasted a month together, hiding out in holes and empty houses, surviving off whatever food was left in the houses and stores that they could find. It had been hard. The food was easy to come by then, but the hiding was constant. You had to be constantly on the lookout. You couldn’t get in the soldiers' way. You couldn’t let them see you, even, or they might consider you a threat to their mission.

The soldier weren’t a threat on the individual level, not really. They were there to take the resources of the Earth, not the person. They wanted the oil and the fuels, not the bread and the water.

They came from a planet like Earth, and they had been watching forever before they made their move. Their soldiers looked just like humans, and they invaded the Earth quietly, slipping into jobs as secretaries and doctors before they were activated and given the mission to eliminate anything that got in the way of collecting resources.

The electricity fell a month into the onslaught. Two months later, society was a distant memory. Three-fourths of the world’s population had been wiped out, or so Louis remembered hearing on the last radio broadcast he would ever hear. It was an emergency signal. _Stay alive. Do what you can. The world may never be the same but we all must go on, us one-fourth must go on…_

The soldiers left eventually, leaving a husk of the world.

Nick and Greg joined them a bit after it had all ended, and they lived in the city for a while, but the violence and the fighting got too bad. It was too hard to compete for resources. So they took a chance, and they started driving.

Louis, Harry, and Nick each had a car. It was a risk. Cars weren’t hard to find, but they attracted attention. People with cars had supplies, and everyone wanted supplies.

Only Nick’s car made it all the way to the house they have now.

They drove for a couple days before finding the house, sitting on the hill with a cow roaming about and chickens clucking around. From the outside, it looked like home.

They didn’t know it already was someone’s home.

Liam was inside. Liam, who had been alone since it all ended, and who had started to go slightly mad. He wouldn’t talk to anyone for two weeks, but he started screaming and sobbing if they made a move to pack up and leave him.

When he decided to talk, it was only to Louis at first. He had been so lonely. He just needed them to stay so he could have a family again, so he could feel human again.

It was crazy the way it all came together. The way they all found each other, found their home, found their family. It was crazy and it was perfect.

Sometimes, Louis thinks they might be the luckiest survivors in the world.

-

“Nick told me what he offered you,” Zayn says quietly to Louis, tossing the snapped green beans into the bowl. “I don’t think you should do it.”

“Why not?” Louis frowns. He hadn’t really made up his mind yet, but it was odd for Zayn to throw in his opinion. Zayn was the house-wide confidante. When you needed to talk to someone, you talked to Zayn, and usually, he was nonbiased. He just let you talk. He didn’t offer suggestions other than listen to your heart.

“I just think some other house members might be upset by it.” Zayn keeps snapping the green beans and tossing it into the bowl. The sun is rising over the porch, and it looks beautiful. Louis never used to see these kinds of sunrises in the city.

“You don’t still think Harry has a crush on Nick, do you? Because I think that’s pretty obviously not true.”

“No!” Zayn frowns, annoyed at the memory. “Besides, Nick can always just sleep with Greg. I’m sure Greg will be fine with it.”

“Greg’s straight. I’m not so sure.”

“Mate, it’s the end of the world. I don’t think sexualities are that strict anymore.”

“It’s not the end of the world anymore,” Louis says moodily and eats the raw green bean. “Why did we have to get up so early to do this, anyway? We could have just done this after breakfast.”

Zayn shrugs. “I thought you might like to seen the sun rise.”

Well, sometimes Zayn gets it right.

Someone knocks on the door. Louis lifts an eyebrow.

“Excuse me,” he calls. “But did you just knock on the door to see if you could come outside?”

“I didn’t want to interrupt a private moment,” comes Liam’s muffled voice. Louis laughs. Of course it would be Liam.

“Come on out,” Zayn says. “But only if you’re willing to work, of course.”

“Of course,” Liam says as he opens the door. He sits down on the porch next to Louis and grabs a handful of unsnapped green beans. “What are we talking about?”

“If Greg and Nick should bang,” Louis says.

“Oh. Uh, I vote yes? Only because I think they probably will eventually and I want to be right.”

“I have trained you well,” Louis says gravely.

Zayn rolls his eyes. “You both are ridiculous. Chef Liam, what’s for breakfast this morning?”

“Raw green beans?” Liam teases. “No, uh, I made a fruit salad. It’s pretty good.”

“Westside.” Louis grins.

After an hour, the sun is fully risen and the green beans are all snapped, so they walk inside to where the others have been waiting for them.

“Niall wanted to eat without you, but I thought we should probably at least wait for the chef,” Greg explains. Niall grumbles and crosses his arms. He’s never been a morning person.

“And Zayn!” Harry chirps. “Oh, and Louis, too.”

“Louis, too,” Louis mimics, scrunching up his face. “As if I’m not the most important person here.”

“You all didn’t have to wait,” Liam says, but his face is beaming and it’s obvious that he’s pleased that they did. He grabs the bowl of fruit salad and starts serving everyone a small portion.

Louis remembers when fruit salad was a side, not a meal.

Zayn kisses Harry’s head lightly as he sits down. They’ve been a lot more open about it lately, since it was obvious that they had fooled no one. Harry still gets a bit jittery about it, but Zayn’s there to calm him down. That’s probably why they work so well--they balance each other out.

The fruit salad is good, and Louis feels pleased, not because he made the salad but because he grew the fruit and it is the quite literal fruits of his labor. There’s something satisfying about eating something you made appear. He would have been a great farmer.

Today is a relaxed day. The chores have been set aside for a day, just to let them chill and decompress. It doesn’t happen too often where they can spare an entire day without doing anything, but the haul has been helping out a lot, and since Zayn and Louis took care of the one thing they couldn’t put off any longer, the day is theirs.

Zayn and Niall like to take the day to go on a nature hike. They have a certain loop they take, and it’s miles long and seems dreadful to Louis but it’s their thing, and today it’s also Harry’s thing, because Zayn and Harry are in that honeymoon stage where being apart just seems dreadful. Nick likes to make himself a hot bath, a long process of getting the water from the well, putting it in the metal tub clawfoot tub in the bathroom, heating up the and then entering it. Greg disappears to his room to write his histories.

Since Louis met Greg, Greg has been obsessed with writing the history of everything that happened during the fight. He wants it to be preserved. He has the idea that society has hit restart and soon it will all come back to where they were before, and he wants them to have some sort of record of the past. Louis thinks it’s noble.

Liam and Louis end up in Louis’ room, playing cards. Liam is shit at Speed and Go Fish, and Louis thinks he maybe remembers the rules to all the games wrong but they always have a good time anyway.

“Liam, you lied, you said Go Fish but you had the card,” Louis complains for nearly the hundredth time.

“Sorry!” Liam squeals. “I always miss it! They hide!”

“They don’t hide, they’re cards!”

Liam whines and hands Louis the card, then pauses. “Wait, how did you know that I had that card?”

“Um.”

“Louis! Have you been cheating?”

Louis starts laughing and throws all his cards down. “Sorry! You just make it so easy!”

“Lewis!”

“Hey!” Louis catapults himself at Liam and wrestles him down to the ground. Liam lets him win, and stares obediently up at Louis after he straddles him.

“You were cheating.”

“You were flashing your cards everywhere, it hardly counts.” Louis pinches his nipple.

“Ow!”

Louis shrugs.

“Can you get off me, please?”

He should do that, he reasons. He should probably get off of Liam. He doesn’t do that, though. He puts his hand on Liam’s spine and he traces down and he finds the spot, and his whole body is buzzing.

Liam goes stiff. “Louis. Get off me.”

“What am I touching? Is it a scar?”

_“Louis.”_ Liam tries to shove his hand away or shove him off, but Louis stays put. He won’t be pushed around.

His finger traces the hole and he realizes it goes quite deep. Not a scar at all, unless a scar goes at least half an inch into the body.

And, he realizes, is a perfect rectangle.

_What?_

The shock gives Liam a window to push Louis off and stand up, bringing a hand to touch the spot.

“Liam, I’m buzzing. Why am I doing that?” Louis asks, looking at his hands. They feel like they’re pulsating. He remembers massage chairs from before and he feels like his whole body has turned into one.

“You’re not actually buzzing.”

“That’s not comforting at all,” Louis informs him.

Liam looks away. “I want to take a nap now.”

“But why am I buzzing?”

“I don’t know,” Liam snaps. “Maybe you shouldn’t go feeling up private parts of people’s bodies.”

That’s not fair. It’s not like he reached for Liam’s balls, he reached for his neck. It’s not his fault Liam has got some thing on his neck that he doesn’t want to talk about.

Suddenly Louis thinks of his back, where he has a foot-long scar, all jagged and expanding, and how long it took for him to explain to Liam, much less to everyone, and he feels like a massive dick.

Because they’ve all survived this terrible thing and it makes sense, it makes perfect sense that Liam wouldn’t want to talk about whatever it is he has on his neck, especially since it must’ve been something awful to make such a perfect square shape.

“Oh, shit,” Louis exhales. “I’m so sorry, Liam, I don’t know why I did that, I wasn’t thinking, I’m so sorry,” he gushes.

Liam shakes his head, hand still holding what Louis assumes is his scar. “I want to be alone for a bit.”

“Liam, no, please, I’m sorry, we’ll just pretend it didn’t happen, okay? I won’t ask, you don’t have to explain.” He would reach out and try to hug Liam but he thinks that that wouldn’t go well, considering.

“I want to be alone,” Liam repeats, and he leaves the room, and Louis feels worse than he ever has before.

And he can’t deny that he feels an awful sense of curiosity, like even though he knows it’s terrible, he might be about to pry into Liam’s life.

-

“Did you know Liam has a weird scar on the back of his neck?” Louis asks Zayn. They’re picking blueberries behind the house for their afternoon chore. He’s not expecting Zayn to know. He’s asked all the others so far, and only Nick was aware that it existed, and that was only because Nick was a creep who liked to stare at guys. (Louis is aware that this is pot meeting kettle, but he likes to ignore that fact.)

Zayn gives him a weird look. “Why?”

Louis stops picking and looks up at him. “So you know about it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, but everyone else said something like, ‘weird how?’ or ‘what scar?’ or something else to show that they had no idea what I was referring to. You know what I’m talking about, so you asked me why I’m asking you, not what it is.”

“Did he tell you about it?” Zayn asks, ignoring his tangent.

“No. I kinda, like, tackled him, and then touched it, and then he got really mad and stormed off and now he’s acting normal but I still want to know what it is and he won’t tell me.”

“You shouldn’t go prying into people’s pasts, Louis. It’s not right and it’s not fair.”

“Okay, but listen,” Louis says. “It made me buzz.”

“It... made you… buzz?”

“I touched it and it made me buzz, like with energy or something.”

Zayn gives him a considering look. “Okay. I could understand how that might happen. Well, don’t touch it anymore.”

“Zayn,” Louis whines. “You know how he got it. He told you and not me. That’s not fair.”

It makes sense, though, because Zayn is silent and trustworthy and the type of person that it feels okay to tell everything to. He’s still a bit peeved.

“He didn’t ‘get it’, per say,” Zayn says slowly.

“What does that even _mean?”_ Louis whines, stomping his foot.

“You’re such a child sometimes, honestly, Louis. He can’t tell you. He shouldn’t have told me. I’m telling you not so you get insanely curious but so you really, truly, understand this, okay?” Zayn turns to Louis and looks dead in his eyes. “He should not have told me and I wish he hadn’t. He should have kept it to himself. Don’t ask him to tell you. Don’t bother him about it, because it will either make him hate you and avoid you, or he’ll tell you, and you’ll begin to hate him.”

“I would never hate him,” Louis says quietly. “And you don’t hate him, either, and you know.”

“It’s different for me.” Zayn shakes his head. “It didn’t affect me the way that it would affect you, and that’s why I’m saying, don’t pry. There’s no possible good outcome.”

“Whatever.” Louis rolls his eyes

There’s nothing Liam could say to make him hate him. Louis has been through too much to make the decision to hate someone and lose that person. And he would never, ever do anything to lose his best friend.

He didn’t ‘get’ the scar? What the fuck, Zayn.

As if adding mystery would make Louis uninterested in it.

-

The thing is, Liam doesn’t really actively hide it, and that’s what makes it so brilliant.

If he was constantly covering his neck and his back, it would be so obvious that he was hiding something. But he doesn’t do that. He just never talks about, and he never goes shirtless, and though his shirt normally covers it, sometimes it slips down and Louis can see it peaking out.

It’s a small rectangle, maybe half an inch by a quarter inch. It would be easy to miss. In fact, it’s completely understandable why Louis never noticed it before.

It’s not red, like a normal scar. Of course, he’s already ruled out normal scar, considering its depth. But he doesn’t have another word for it, and he assumes that that’s the nature of it, anyway, an injury that is now healing slowly. So the scar is dark, like a black but not quite, and sometimes he swears he sees it shine when the light hits it.

Not a normal scar.

Zayn catches him staring sometimes and scowls, and Zayn’s not the only one who has noticed his sudden interest in Liam’s back. Zayn’s just the only one who got the reason right.

Harry corners him in the living room, smile bright and shining.

“I think it’s really cute, the way you stare at Liam.”

“Excuse me?” Louis sputters.

“You know! You’re always admiring his back muscles, and all that. Are you gonna tell him you like him?”

“I think he knows that I like him, Harry. I mean, I called him my best friend just this morning.”

“Stop being difficult, Lou. Just admit that you _like_ like him.”

“We aren’t children, Harry! And I’m not admiring him, I’m--,” Louis pauses. He’s decided not to clue anyone else in on Liam’s scar. It just seems right. “Well. You caught me!”

“Told you!” Harry beams. “It’s nothing to be ashamed about. We’re all pairing off, anyway. Me and Zayn and Greg and Nick and you and Liam!”

“Are Nick and Greg properly together, then?”

“Well, not really together, but they, like, do stuff together and stuff,” Harry says.

“Ah.” Louis thinks this subject change is going quite well. “Well, what about Niall?”

Harry turns bright red. Interesting. “Um, don’t worry about Niall, Louis.”

“What?” Louis squints. “What do you mean, don’t worry about Niall?” Something terrible blooms in the back of his mind. “Harry, are you cheating on Zayn?”

Harry doesn’t say anything.

“Harry, please tell me you’re not cheating on Zayn. You’re perfect for each other, Harry, and you love each other, how could you even consider doing this?” Louis is panicking a bit. These are his best mates, how could they fuck this up? How could Niall be so stupid? They’re trapped together in a house, they don’t have anywhere else in the world to go, and Louis can’t bear to lose any of them, how could they be so fucking selfish?

“No one is cheating, Louis,” Harry says quietly.

“Did you two break up?”

“No,” Harry says slowly.

“Is Niall asexual?”

“Oh, trust me,” Harry leers. “Niall definitely is not asexual.”

Louis frowns. “Okay, but how can you and Zayn still be together, and you and Niall are hooking up, and no one is cheating?” He pauses. “Harry?”

“Yes?” Harry says innocently.

“Are you, Zayn, and Niall engaging in three-part sexual relations?”

Harry giggles and nods.

_“Oh my god,”_ Louis shouts. “Oh my god! Shut up, oh my god!” He puts his hands over his ears and keeps shouting, trying to block out that _awful,_ awful thought.

The other house occupants burst in soon after, looking around frantically. Liam is holding a towel in a threatening way, while Niall has his fists up. They all look fairly confused when they see Harry and Louis standing peacefully in the kitchen, Louis still shouting.

“What the hell,” Niall sputters.

Louis stops yelling and lowers his hands. “I have just been informed of something awful.”

“Hey, don’t tell everyone,” Harry whines.

“Zayn, Harry, and Niall are having threesomes,” Louis says solemnly, ignoring Harry.

“Christ,” Niall mutters, right as Nick and Greg explode into laughter. Zayn and Harry exchange embarrassed looks, and Liam looks thoroughly unimpressed.

“That’s why you were screaming like a madman?” Liam asks.

“You would have the same reaction!” Louis says, defending himself.

“Well, I mean, you just told me, and my reaction wasn’t like that at all,” Liam responds reasonably.

“Can we just drop this, please?” Zayn begs.

“Never. We will never drop this,” Nick chokes out between laughs.

“Hey, do you want to discuss Greg?” Niall shot back.

Everyone shuts up pretty quick.

-

Liam might be avoiding him. He might have been avoiding him for a long time, actually. He does it so artfully that Louis only just realizes as they’re sitting on opposite sides of the couch that he’s being avoided.

It’s not as though they haven’t spoken in a while. They have. They talk at all the group meals. And Liam doesn’t hide when Louis approaches. Instead, he’s just stopped encouraging it. He keeps his answers short. He doesn’t seek out Louis like he normally does. And now, as they’re sitting on the couch, Liam has put an entire square of sofa between them.

The bastard.

How long as he been doing this? Louis thinks back and tries to recall when exactly the last time Liam sought him out was, and the memory descends on him like a flock of birds landing on telephone wires.

Obviously. The break day. The day he assaulted Liam and felt up his neck and demanded answers about his past. Thinking about it still makes his hands feel prickly, like they’re going to start buzzing again any second. He has to resist the urge to reach forward and touch it again.

The rest of the house is asleep, or at least in their rooms. He saw Niall slink out of his own room and into Harry and Zayn’s a couple hours ago, carrying pillows and blankets. He wonders if that frees up Niall’s room permanently, if Liam can finally have an actual bed.

“Liam?”

“Yeah?” Liam looks up from the book in his lap, probably the Sherlock Holmes collection. It’s his favorite.

“You could probably take Niall’s room, if you want. Much better than this couch.”

Liam’s face doesn’t move for a couple seconds, and then he shakes his head. “Uh, no thanks.”

“Niall doesn’t even use his room anymore. He wouldn’t mind. It just makes sense.”

“I don’t want his room.”

“Please,” Louis scoffs. “You can hardly say that you like the couch.”

“I like the couch,” Liam protests.

“As if. It’s a rock. I can barely sit on it, much less sleep on it.”

“I sleep just fine,” Liam says stiffly.

Louis grins at him and straightens his back. “Alright. If you’re going to be difficult, I’ll make you a deal.”

“Oh? What’s that?” Liam closes his book and looks at him with interest.

“I’m going to stay up with you, and if you can truly fall asleep, you can stay down here. But if you can’t, you have to move upstairs.”

“That’s ridiculous, Louis,” Liam says, shaking his head. “I sleep down here every night.”

“Do you, though?” Louis grins. “Because, actually, now that I think about it, I’ve never seen you asleep down here. You’re always awake.”

“What, so do I just not sleep? Don’t be so stupid.”

“No,” Louis says slowly. “I think you probably sleep in the tub or in the chair or somewhere else to keep up the stupid chivalrous act. But the act’s over now. Accept it. I’m staying up with you.”

“No, Louis,” Liam says forcefully. “And so what if I don’t sleep here? I like being with the books.”

“That’s dumb. Just take Niall’s room.”

“No, Louis!”

Louis frowns. “Why are you so mad about this?”

“Because I don’t want a new room!” Liam grips at his short hair, and Louis is confused, because he seems so frustrated by this conversation and chivalry only goes so far, and why would he be this upset by something that isn’t really a big deal?

“Why?” Louis scoots down the couch to be closer to Liam, and puts his hand on his knee, leaning closer, trying to make Liam feel safe. “What’s going on, Liam?”

“Oh my god, Louis! Can you let one single fucking thing go? Can you let me have a single thing in my life that’s just mine?” Liam shouts, and Louis doesn’t think he’s ever seen him this _mad_ before. “You’re such a prick sometimes!”

“I don’t understand what could possibly be such a big fucking secret around you not wanting a new fucking room!”

_“This.”_ Liam’s eyes are staring into his and they seem urgent as they grab his hand and place it on his neck, sliding it down until it’s resting on the scar, and Louis is buzzing again, and this isn’t an answer, not at all. “If you stay up with me, you’re going to be staying up a very long time, Lou.”

“Liam, I really don’t understand.” He’s trying to be sensitive. His voice is soft and his eyebrows are lowered, and he’s right back at Liam and trying to ignore that his whole body seems to be vibrating.

“I don’t sleep, Louis. We don’t sleep.”

“Yes, we do,” Louis says slowly. “I sleep every night.” Liam’s hand is still holding his to the spot.

“I’m not talking about you-and-me ‘we’. I mean my kind ‘we’.” Liam bites his lip, and then speaks again. “Do you understand yet?”

“No,” Louis says, and he’s a bit forceful about it, but the buzzing is getting faster and he’s starting not to like it.

“Louis,” Liam says quietly, still staring into him. “Louis, I’m not human, okay? I’m—I’m whatever you call things like me. Androids, soldiers, whatever. That’s me. And I don’t sleep, and I don’t eat, or perform any of those kinds of human functions, and moving me to Niall’s room would just make me very bored, okay?”

Louis slips his hand away from Liam and his body stops buzzing but his mind is on fire.

“What… Of course you eat,” he says, a bit dumbly, but thinking back, he’s never seen Liam eat. He’s always cleaning up or serving, and Louis had assumed that he ate before or after but clearly that’s not the case. “Liam, what do you mean you’re a soldier?”

Liam closes his eyes and sits back. “I’m a soldier that wasn’t activated, Louis. Or maybe I malfunctioned or something, but I’m not human. I’m not quite alien, either, I don’t think. I was made to invade but I never was told to.”

His legs are shaking as he stands up. “You were made to invade?”

“Yes.”

“So the scar, then. That’s a port—a, a USB, sort of, or whatever—that’s why it’s a square.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a machine, Liam.”

Liam opens his eyes and nods at him.

Louis feels like he’s about to shatter. “And what? You’re just waiting for the earth to rebuild so you can fucking kill us all again? Just waiting for us to stumble upon oil or fuel or something else your mother planet wants so you can slaughter us all and call them all back home?” He starts to yell, but he doesn’t care, because his best friend is looking at him with big sad cow eyes but he can’t bring himself to feel bad, because somewhere inside of him there’s wires where a heart should be.

“It’s not like that.” Liam is staying sad and soft, and that’s how he’s going to play this? Like a child? Like he’s not some robot made to plunder and kill and destroy?

“Oh? What is it like, Liam? Please fucking explain! Please explain to me how and why I’m supposed to be okay with this!” Louis is backing up, putting more space between them. He doesn’t want to be close when Liam snaps into the mindset of a machine that he has inside of him and decides to neutralize the threat.

“Because I have no orders, Louis. I have no reason to attack, I have no thoughts to attack. I’m just like you, my mind is just like you.”

“You’re not like me.” Louis glares at him. “I want you to leave tonight.”

“What?”

“Do the others know about this? Because I guarantee that they wouldn’t want you here, either.”

“Zayn knows.” Liam frowns. “He told me not to tell the others. He said that’s he’s the only one who hasn’t lost someone close to something like me, and that he understood, but you guys wouldn’t. But it’s you, Louis, you know me, you have to understand.” He sounds like he’s pleading, but machines don’t plead. They mimic and they worm their way into safety and then they destroy from the inside out.

“I know you,” Louis agrees, his tone cool. “I know what you can do. And that’s why I want you gone. The others will agree when I tell them.”

“You can’t force me out, Louis. You don’t have the authority. I’m not going, this is my home.” Liam crosses his arms. “I thought you would understand. Clearly you don’t. But I’m not leaving.”

“We’ll put it to a vote, then.” He shrugs. “Tomorrow. House meeting. They’ll vote you out, and you’ll have to go.”

He notices Liam’s lip tremble as he says, “You would really do that? You would really force me out? Because if you tell them, you’ll win. You know that. You’ll win and I’ll have to go.”

For a second, he pauses and thinks. Because he’s still Liam, somewhat. He still helped him farm and clean and he still can tell good jokes and he still has the eyes of a kid who has been hurt one too many times. And then he feels his heart, heavy with the fact that Liam has lied, and burning with the death of his sisters and his mom by the hand of someone just like Liam, and he looks at the house that isn’t his home, and he thinks of the fields that he’s planted, and the theatre he used to work at, and the world that has been destroyed, and he thinks of the scar and the buzzing of what he assumes is some sort of alien energy.

He thinks of the graves that are in the back of the chicken coops, the empty holes they dug when things were really bad and Zayn thought it would be smart to be prepared if one of them were to die.

“Yes.”

-

There isn’t breakfast the next day.

Louis wakes them all up at dawn, room by room, telling them he’s calling a house meeting.

Nick and Greg look confused but obediently head downstairs.

Harry and Niall break apart and do the same, something in Louis’ voice obviously cluing them in to how serious it was.

Zayn just looked at him sadly. As he walked out of the room, he paused next to Louis and looked at him.

“You know—he isn’t going to hurt anyone. What happened to all of us, it happened to him, too.”

“He didn’t lose anyone.” Louis keeps his eyes straight forward as he talks.

“Neither did I.”

“That’s different.”

“Think about what you’re doing here, Louis,” Zayn says quietly. “Think about what you’re going to do to Liam. To all of us. It won’t just hurt him.”

Louis doesn’t say anything back, and Zayn stares at him for a moment before walking away.

In the living room, Liam is pressed against the wall, arms crossed, jaw tense. He’d been there for hours.

As Louis descends the stairs, he looks at the scene in the house. Nick, Greg and Niall arranged on the couch, Harry on the floor by Niall’s legs, and Zayn standing next to Liam, a hand on his shoulder.

“What’s this all about?” Harry asks as Louis takes his place in front of the room.

“Liam, you want to tell them?” Louis looks at him expectantly, reasoning that he should give him one chance to explain himself, one at least.

After a moment, Liam nods slightly. “Just… I’m the same person.” He looks to Zayn for a moment, and then back at the others. “That’s all.”

“Look, mate,” Nick cuts in. “I think we’re really all above coming out, okay? So if you and Louis are fucking, that’s really fine by all of us.”

“That’s _not_ what’s going on,” Louis hisses. “Let me tell you what’s going on. Liam here?” He points. “He’s a fucking android. And not even a good one, because while the rest of them were all slaughtering everyone we care about, Liam was playing house, because his brain wasn’t wired right. And when we all came here, instead of telling us, he decided he should just masquerade as human. And he’s not. He’s a fucking lie, you guys. And I want him out. And I think the rest of you do, too, and he won’t go unless we vote on it.” As Louis talked, he got faster and faster, trying to get it all out. His hands tightened into fists, and he couldn’t help but glare at Liam as it all came pouring out. “He’s a fucking monster.”

“I’m not…” Liam trails off and shook his head, and Louis swears he could see tears forming in the corner of his eyes. What a fucking joke.

The rest of the room looks surprisingly calm. Harry and Niall look mostly nervous, Nick a little miffed, and Greg is the closest to upset.

“Not an android?” Greg supplies, his voice a bit high. “Louis is going crazy, right?”

“No,” Liam says softly. “No, he got that part right.”

And then silence.

After a moment, Harry slowly raises his hand.

“Harry, it’s not—,” Louis rolls his eyes, not even sure where to take the sentence. “You can just talk.”

“Uh, yeah, I already knew.” Harry shrugs.

“What?” Liam jolts up straight. “I didn’t _tell_ you.”

“I saw the scar thingy on your neck and I’ve seen it before on them. And I talked to Niall about it, and he said that he had this theory about you and how we found you. We were thinking more that you actively chose to rebel and not that you didn’t work right, but…” He trails off, looking to Niall for support.

“Um, yeah,” Niall says. His smile comes off more apologetic than reassuring. “So I guess we were basically right though.” Liam looks like he might faint where he stands.

“Liam told me,” Zayn puts in. “And for the record, I vote he stays.” He tightens his hand on Liam’s back, and Louis sees Liam smile for the first time since last night.

Louis thinks he might puke.

“Okay, well, now I’m mainly mad that no one clued me in,” Nick says flatly. “Jesus. I’m cool, too.”

“None of this is the fucking point, guys,” Louis says. “The point is he should leave. We can’t trust him. And everyone who agrees with me, raise your hand now.” He raises his hand.

No one else in the room moves.

For a moment, everything is frozen.

“Okay, the thing is, Louis,” Greg slowly starts. “The thing is, I get it. I get that this is bad, I get that he lied, I get all of that. But at the same time… it’s Liam.” He looks around at the others, and Harry bobs his head in agreement. “I just… I can understand hating androids, because I do. But it’s been months, Louis. He could’ve killed all of us a million times over. And he didn’t. And I don’t know if I should trust him, I genuinely don’t. I don’t know then right answer here. But I do know that I don’t want him alone out there. And he was here first, to be fair.”

Liam slides down the wall to sit on the floor, looking paler than ever. “Do... do you all feel that way? That I can stay?”

“Honestly, it doesn’t bother me too much,” Harry says. “Maybe that’s fucked up. But fundamentally, I don’t see him and the thing that killed my mom as the same thing. Because what killed my family was heartless. But Liam cried when I read Charlotte’s Web to him.”

Zayn nods. “I’m not turning out one of my best mates because of unfounded fear. I know that I haven’t lost the same as you all because most my family was gone before all of this, but Liam hasn’t done anything to warrant this.” He turned to Louis. “Honestly? I wanted to expect more out of you, Louis. I wanted you to understand where Liam was coming from. It’s not his fault, and he has done everything in his power to keep us safe and happy.”

“Hey,” Nick snaps. “Don’t get mad at Louis, okay? I’m with you, mostly. I don’t think we should force Liam out, but we can’t force anyone to be okay with this all, either.” The air between him and Liam feels tight. “Liam, I don’t know how I feel about this. But I still love you.”

Liam nods, and then closes his eyes and leans his back against the wall. “For whatever it’s worth, and I get that it may not be a lot, but I still love all of you guys, too.” His eyes crack open and turn towards Louis, and Louis can’t look away. “All of you. No matter what. No matter how much you hate me.”

“I don’t think any of us _hate_ you,” Niall says.

And if any of them say any more, Louis doesn’t hear them, because he’s running out the door into the fields, running as far as he can away from that place that he can’t believe he used to think was a home.

-

Louis spends the next month high.

After he returns to the house, Zayn lets him in on a little secret: a couple cannabis plants out behind the chicken coop. Apparently, Louis needs it more than Zayn does. So he uses it. Extensively.

It’s easier to deal with having to see Liam everyday if he’s seeing him stoned out of his mind. It’s easier to fall asleep at night, without having to think about all the times he genuinely thought he could trust Liam. It’s easier to avoid the fact that everyone else in the house is okay with what’s going on.

It helps that Liam avoids him, too. He takes Niall’s room upstairs, now free to walk up and down the stairs all night to get books or things to entertain himself without having to worry about people asking questions. He makes the food, does his chores, then disappears for the rest of the day.

Louis jokes with Zayn that his whole life would be easier if Liam had done that from the beginning. Zayn doesn’t laugh.

Weed helps him with something else, too. It helps him fill the pit of emptiness inside him.

Before, he had thought he was fine living out his life with best friends. But before, everyone wasn’t coupled up.

Zayn and Harry are the worst, genuinely sickeningly in love. Niall is excluded from the relationship bit (by his own wants, apparently. When Louis had asked him about it, he had shrugged and said he loved them platonically, but he sure was attracted to them sexually.) But come night time, the three of them snuggle away in their room.

Nick and Greg still aren’t an item, just fuck buddies, but they had the sort of ease around them of a pair of people that knew each other intimately, and when it came to just hanging out, they preferred to spend time together anyway, since they were close to begin with.

And Louis is alone.

He misses his best friend, not even the best high can get that fucking thought out of his head, and he hates himself for it, and the worst bit is that little fucking nagging thought in the back of his head, the thought that if he had never found out, he wouldn’t just have a best friend right now, he might have something more, that there was _always_ something more between them, and if this hadn’t all happened, maybe that would have happened instead.

And he’s just so fucking lonely.

Because he doesn’t have anyone proper to talk to, and every day, he realizes more and more that this is his life, and this is it, and he’s going to die like this.

Alone, in a house of his friends, with nobody holding him, nobody next to him, nobody to really remember him how he wants to be remembered.

Back in the real world, Louis wanted to get married. He wanted all his family and friends there, and he wanted to live in a house with his spouse and have children and raise them and obviously that can’t happen now, what with the house being an all-male kind of deal, but he could still have the husband and the house, couldn’t he? He doesn’t want his future ripped away from him, he doesn’t. He had everything else in the world ripped out of his grasp and this is the one thing he wasn’t ready to let go.

Some nights he swears he almost forgets Liam is a traitor, what with how loud the missing him is.

And then he tries to remember that none of that is important now.

Because he hates Liam, he really does.

(Right?)

-

“THIS IS AN INTERVENTION!” The banner in the living room exclaims in Harry’s loopy handwriting.

Under it, stands Harry, Nick, Zayn, Niall and Greg, chattering amongst themselves.

Louis stares at them from the bottom of the staircase.

“Um?” he manages to get out.

“Oh! Louis!” Harry claps. “You’ve made it! Come sit down!”

Obediently, Louis walks slowly over to the couch and sits, looking up at all of the faked smiles they’ve each plastered on.

“We want to talk to you,” Niall says, taking a seat next to him. The rest of them follow his example and sit down on the couch and nearby armchairs.

“This is all Harry’s idea, for the record,” Nick interjects. “But it’s not a bad idea.”

“I feel slightly responsible.” Zayn runs a hand through his hair as he talks, looking morose. “When I showed you my stash, I really didn’t mean for you to use it constantly, Louis. I just thought it would help you cope with the initial shock. You weren’t supposed to completely tune out.”

“And it’s not that we’re anti-weed! I would love to smoke with you sometime.” Greg grins at him.

“Guys! Not the point!” Harry waves his hands in the air as if to wave away their comments. “Being high is one thing, Louis. But the whole Liam thing has _got_ to be resolved.”

“No,” Louis cuts in loudly. He tries to get up, but several hands grab his leg and hold him in place. “Guys! I’ll cut down on the weed, and Zayn, I’m sorry for hogging it all, but the ‘Liam thing’ isn’t changing. No.”

“Louis,” Greg says gently, patting his leg. “Listen, I was more on your side than the others were. But even now I’ve gotten over. And it’s time for you. We all know the reasons you have against him.”

Niall took over, “But even you have to admit that he’s still the same. Completely the same.”

“He was your _best mate,_ ” Nick says. “Honestly, I don’t think there’s a reason that he still can’t be. Besides his new haircut, even I’ll admit that it’s a bit dodgy.”

“We’re not telling you how to think,” Zayn says.

Harry cut in. “Yes, we are!”

“Shut up, Harry. No, we aren’t,” Zayn continued. “We’re just saying to consider moving on. Because the rest of us have.”

Nick smiles at him. “It’s a lot! And we get that! But it’s been over a month and nothing has happened, and it’s been nearly a year since we got here and nothing has happened, and it’s giving us all the impression that, well, maybe nothing is going to happen.”

Niall sighed. “We know it’s hard, okay? But he really is the same. And more than that, the whole android thing is really overstated in your head. Because the whole world was filled with them, and none of us knew, and to me, that means that when someone else isn’t controlling their head, they’re okay people. Just because they’re not what we’re used to being people doesn’t mean they’re not people.” Niall grips Louis’ leg and squeezes, grinning a bit as he does. “I mean, come fucking on. We survived the apocalypse. Don’t you think it’s time to be a little bit more progressive?”

-

Liam sits next to him at the well, both of them silently scrubbing away at the pile of clothes.

The scene feels so familiar Louis could cry.

His knuckles are raw against the washing board, and he wishes he had smoked more this morning to prepare for this. But how would he know for fucking terrible it actually would be?

That morning, Zayn had told him that he was tired of scheduling everything around not letting Louis and Liam alone, and Louis was just going to have to grow up and deal with it. At the time, it had seemed bad, but not horrific.

Most of his hurt was more of a dull ache in his stomach now, anyway. But now, seeing Liam, he feels like his stomach is on fire with want.

“You know I worry about you,” Liam says softly.

His voice sounds—god, it sounds like home, and isn’t that a fucking cheesy thing to say? He had never believed a single instance of that phrase until right this second, where it feels like the only thing he can think.

“It just, all this drugs and shit, it isn’t you,” he continues on. “I know you hate me.”

Do I?, Louis thinks to himself, and then immediately reprimands himself for thinking that. Of course he does. Of course.

“I know that. But I still want the best for you.” Liam sets his board down and looks at Louis for the first time in a month. Everything inside Louis is breaking at once and he can’t look away. “I know you hate me, but I will always think of you as my best friend, Louis. Always.”

Louis looks down and feels something like tears fight to come up, and his throat has never felt drier. He tries to swallow but the giant lump gets in the way.

“I think I could have properly loved you, Liam,” he says. “I know I could have.”

Liam’s eyes are glassy, too. Louis will never get over that androids can cry. His hands feel drops hitting them, and shit, that’s from him. He’s crying now.

“I’ve always properly loved you, Louis.”

Louis looks away from him and wipes his eyes quickly. “I don’t want this.”

“I don’t want you to hate me anymore.” His voice is begging. Liam is properly begging to be forgiven.

“I can’t help it.” Louis’ voice can’t be more than a whisper, his throat hurts so much and his chest is burning and this is what it feels like, this is what it feels like to have everything so close in your grasp and a million miles away all at once. “Don’t you think I want my best friend back? Don’t you think that I would love to be happy? I can’t do it, though. I just can’t.”

_“Try,”_ Liam says urgently, and oh.

That’s what it feels like for an android to kiss you.

It’s surprisingly warm, and a little wet, partially from the tears, partially from Louis’ own dumbfounded open mouth.

He wants to push away. That’s his first instinct, if Liam’s voice still weren’t ringing in his ears.

Try, he said.

And Louis really wants to try.

So he brings his hands up, and he touches Liam’s face. It’s smooth. One hand snakes around to his neck, reaches down his spine, and yup, there it is, the stupid little port that caused all of this mess.

In this context, the vibration feels kind of nice.

Liam pulls away before Louis fully has comprehended all of it. He looks at him with his big, dumb cow eyes that Louis has always had a big, dumb spot for.

“Liam.” Louis’ voice breaks a bit. “I can’t promise you anything, okay? I can’t promise that this will work. I can’t.”

“Do you want it to work?” Liam asks simply.

What a fucking question.

Does he want it to work, with this android soldier alien that was sent to murder him and everyone he loves? Does he want it to work with someone he swore, he really swore that he hated? Does he want to give up all the hate that’s been burning inside of him?

Does he want it to work with his best friend?

With the first person he truly feels like he wants to spend the rest of the end of the world with, even though it’s not really the end of the world anymore? Does he want it to work with his ultimate charades partner? Does he want possibly the rest of his life next to the guy who let him cheat at Go Fish and yes, does have very nice arms and back and everything else, and the guy Louis remembers, the first time he talked to him, told him that when he saw Louis, he knew everything was going to be okay?

“Do you want it to work?” Liam repeats, and when their eyes meet that time Louis feels like, for the first time since that night, maybe this is the same guy as before. Maybe everything can be okay.

“Yes,” he says, and he kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> If you got this far, I love you. Comments and kudos always super appreciated.


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